


A While

by HogwartsToAlexandria



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Injury, Love Confessions, M/M, MIT Era, Mutual Pining, Pining, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26493559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HogwartsToAlexandria/pseuds/HogwartsToAlexandria
Summary: Tony loves his best friend. Heloveshim loves him. But he's kept his mouth shut, fearing he'd lose him if he told Rhodey.How wrong he was.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark
Comments: 10
Kudos: 111
Collections: pine4pine 2020





	A While

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smaragdbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/gifts).



> Hey! Hope you'll enjoy the fluff dear recip! Thank you to the amazing Aohatsu for cheering, beta-ing and all around helping me with this!

The game is going strong. The Engineers are winning by 6 points a quarter to the end of it. Tony feels so proud of his team, not even a bit sad that his wrecked knee means he can't be on the field with them. He's so proud of his team, yes, but he's even prouder of his best friend. 

Rhodey just scored his fifth point of the afternoon, making the entire stadium erupt in cheers and chants of  _ Rhodes! Rhodes! Rhodes!  _ Tony's voice louder than any other. 

The lights are as blinding as usual, the fries as cold as they always get when Tony grabs some to watch the game instead of participating for whatever reason, and Pepper keeps telling him to sit back down or he'll hurt his knee further even if he is wearing a cast, but he can't really make himself care. 

If they win this one, MIT will go to the semi-finals. It hasn't happened in a  _ long _ time, and Coach isn't the only one who wants to believe they have a shot this year. A really good shot at it. 

Rhodey's shot. 

Of course, his life should have taught him by now that nice things that go on a while, end in a bang. And not generally a good bang. 

That bang cracks across the field, almost loud enough that Tony thinks he heard it happen even though Rhodey was running for his last few yards and Tony is sitting on his team's bench, all the way on the other side of the field. 

Everyone in the stadium falls silent when Rhodey and the other team's defence collide. It’s an eerie, unreal  _ lack of sound _ that never happens, nor should ever happen, and Rhodey flies through the air in a way that does not spark joy.

Rhodey flies, and flips, and falls. 

When he hits the ground, he lands right on his left ankle and wrist, yelling out in pain, and then he's balled up in the grass, moving but just barely, and only because of the agony that is sure to be coursing through his entire left side. 

Tony's eyes must be wide enough to pop out. His fries fall under the bench he'd occupied this whole time, abandoned as he gets to his feet. He's running without a care in the world for the cast that makes it all so awkward. He only curses himself for being slowed down by it. 

"Rhodey! Rhodeybear, where does it hurt?"

Tony's heart gives a pang seeing his boy— his  _ best friend _ in so much pain, Rhodey's face twisted like he's never seen it before. It's agony—

"Move kid, move!" The team medics push Tony out of the way, and then get down next to Rhodey, assessing him as quickly as they can before putting him on a stretcher efficiently and gently, but still, Rhodey cries out in pain when they move him.

All Tony's got left is the imprint Rhodey left on the grass where he fell when they take him away. He can't follow, knows he can't — Rhodey wasn't allowed to when Tony injured his knee during a game either. It's awful. He hates it.

Then he sees Pepper waving from the bench, and when he focuses enough, he sees she has car keys dangling from her fingers. 

"You two, I swear to the high… I  _ swear _ ." Pepper curses when they're in the car, and Tony won't stop bouncing his knee. 

* * *

"You look like shit." 

Tony's head snaps up from where he'd let it drop, his chin going up first so suddenly his neck protests. He's once again on his feet, once again gritting his teeth against the weight of his cast.  _ Damn thing hurts.  _

"Looked at yourself, recently?" Tony manages to answer once he realizes he still hasn't. He reaches Rhodey's bedside and reflexively tries to reach for his hand — only to stop himself.  _ Friends don't do that.  _

But then again, friends don't lose their minds over injuries the doctors said would be fixed in no time. 

Friends don't stare at each other the way Tony can't stop himself from staring at Rhodey right now.  _ Friends don't call each other in the middle of the night just to hear each other's voices either.  _

"You kinda scared me," Tony eventually admits, when the silence stretches too long and he really,  _ really _ wants to sit by Rhodey's hip and kiss the fuck out of him. 

"It's a broken ankle and wrist, Tones," Rhodey shrugs — as he would, as he fucking would. 

"But—" 

"Did I talk? While they put me on pain meds, I feel like I talked?" Rhodey interrupts him. 

Tony Stark does not blush. He did not blush at fifteen when Rhodey found him in the shower that first time, he did not blush at seventeen when the girl he pretended to love got fed up with him and told Rhodey he liked boys, only for Rhodey to nod in a  _ "what else is new?"  _ manner. 

He does blush now. He blushes hard enough that Rhodey coughs a bit. They both stay silent a bit longer though, and when Tony can't stand it anymore he just says it — it's nothing to make a big deal about anyway, they've said these words a hundred times and it never meant what he wished they meant, what he wishes so hard they mean now. So he just shrugs, imitating his best friend's favorite downplaying move, "Nothing embarrassing. Your secrets are safe. You just babbled about loving me, as you do." Tony waves in the air, trying to add some flair, more nonchalance, always more nonchalance to balance the fact that his throat is so tight, and his cheeks still too warm to be very credible. 

Rhodey's eyes do a thing though. They don't widen per se. They tighten? His jaw locks a bit? 

Rhodey clears his throat, shifting in his hospital bed. It creaks horribly,  _ the standards in this place for God's sake _ . 

"Yeah," Rhodey draws out the word, "I'd appreciate if we could uhm, forget that." He bites his lip that way he does when he's annoyed with himself. Tony's eyes do widen. He frowns. And frowns harder still when Rhodey curses under his breath. 

He's avoiding Tony's gaze. James Rhodes does not do that. He stares ahead. He says stuff, he analyzes reactions. He does not avoid Tony's eyes on him, ever. Even when he's pissed — which, he often is, let's face it. 

"Wait—" 

"Tones, don't," Rhodey glances at him. 

Tony steps back. Like he's been hit with a truck. Only, the truck is filled with electricity? And the conductors are weird little butterflies settling inside him, flying around as realization strikes. 

"You meant it  _ that way _ ?" Tony, very helpfully, he should say, asks. He's almost proud his voice is only slightly higher than usual. 

Rhodey sits up rather suddenly, winces in reaction, and pulls his hands, broken wrist and not, between his leg, back bowed. He stares at his hands, then looks up. 

"I have… for a while," he confesses then. 

Tony's stunned. And he's ecstatic. And maybe he could cry. He could cry from these few words he's imagined and discarded as impossible, being spoken to him. 

"How long's a while?" He asks again — masochist, always the masochist. 

Rhodey huffs, "Does it even matter? A while! A fucking long while you dork!" 

The exasperation Rhodey lets out is actually reassuring, it comforts Tony in the idea that this is happening for real. 

"As I said, please let it go." Rhodey asks again, and he's back to watching the plaster his doctors put around his wrist to secure it, and that's not at all how Tony thought this would go. 

"Rhodey," Tony calls, "Rhodey, please look at me." 

Rhodey shakes his head. Tony knows he's a lot to take sometimes, and that fuels his abandonment issues for sure, but Rhodey isn't exempt of those. Tony knows what's going on in his head right now because he's lived it, because he's pictured it every single time he's imagined coming out to his best friend about his feelings for him. Every single time. He knows. 

So he finally does sit down by Rhodey's hip. And instead of trying to say anything for once, he slips his hand in Rhodey's unharmed one. Rhodey's hands are always the softest, and today they feel even better than usual. Tony's brain is firing up, millions of thoughts and questions but none of them louder than the one chanting  _ "Rhodey loves me back! He loves me! He's loved me for a while!"  _

Tony squeezes the other man's hand. He thinks about the first day he met him. Thinks about the five years that have gone by since. Thinks about how Rhodey became the rock in the middle of his world, around whom his world gravitates. Thinks about the way his heart is beating so hard it hurts. 

Rhodey looks up with a jerk of his head, and this time his eyes  _ are _ wide. 

"Not telling you how I felt? Is the single hardest shit I have ever done in my entire life." Tony whispers. 

"You?"

Tony only nods. And then he laughs. Uncontrollably, but without taking his hand away from Rhodey's. 

"I think, maybe, everybody but us knew?" He explains, out of breath and crying from too many emotions to name them. 

Rhodey chuckles, but he sobers up quickly enough, and Tony does too. He bites his lip again — another shitty habit he should let go off but eh. 

It's slow. It's so slow the way they do it that first time, and Tony is so thankful that Rhodey is the one leaning closer first because he feels in way over his head. 

They look into each other's eyes as long as they can, cross-eyed right when their lips touch for the first time before Rhodey closes his and Tony follows suit. It enhances everything for some reason. The touch of their mouths together, the quiet in the room, Tony's inability to breathe through his nose. He's kissing his best friend. The way he's wanted to for so long without ever saying anything. 

One kiss turns into a second turns into a third turns into the both of them sucking air in as quickly as possible so they can go back and keep going. Tony puts a hand on Rhodey's cheek, the other one still holding fast onto Rhodey's. 

When they truly can't breathe anymore, Tony brings their foreheads together and they recover right there, through smiles that would blind them if they hadn't closed their eyes. 

It's happened. It's happening. His best friend is his boyfriend. Happy doesn't even begin to cover how Tony feels now, but he'll take it anyway. 

He whispers it, gently, overwhelmed, shaky, "This is the happiest I've ever been." 

Friends don't kiss till their lips hurt, but boyfriends do. 


End file.
